How to defend yourself against enemy spells with SCSII

Darkcloud

So my main problem is not so much dispelling the enemies (though that doesn't always work that well, too) but surviving long enough against enemy spell casters. I buff my party up with various defenses and because the strong enemies are always extremely high level and the only reason they don't already have achieved godhood is that they are somehow to stupid to open doors.

Because of that one dispel magic from them dispels all my buffs with one cast and the spell immunity only works on the mages. Just sending the mages in doesn't work either because strong mages love teleporting to the other party members because they magically know where they are and in some battles you just can't do that.

The two fights that really gave me a problem where the first Irenicus fight in Spellhold and the Demon Knights in the underdark (had to crtl+f them because I saved in a really bad spot because I didn't know they follow me everywhere).

Beholders also had a lot of trial and error involved as well. Because Spell turning only reflects that many spells.

lunar

You can use mislead to kill beholders, as long as your clone is in a safe place you will remain invisible and can blast them away with spells/wands. Greater malison+slow+emotion is useful as they wander around when they take area effect damage.

For mages dispelling your buffs, load up with spell immunity:abjuration, divination and a spell deflection/turning of some sort. On top of improved invisibility+stoneskin+mirror image this will make you very tough to kill. Enemy mages will waste their rounds trying to peel of your defenses. (Unless they have spellstrike) Have a spellshield also, it buys one more round. Have a spell trigger with spell immunity:abjuration+spell deflection+spell shield, cast on self when they dispel your protections. Non mage characters will get dispelled easily so try to enter them into battle later when enemies have used up their dispels and removals.

Darkcloud

The problem is, there are quite some fights where you can't enter the rest of your party later. Like the Irenicus fight and at least Liches love to just teleport to the other party members regardless of where they are (you can see that behavior in Vanilla with Phase Spiders).

My main problem is probably that I really don't have a party fit for SCS with Imoen as the only Spellcaster.

Also about dispelling shouldn't Pierce Magic and Breach allow you to damage enemy mages. It didn't work with Irenicus but he did put up new protection spells all the time I believe.

lunar

Even in those fights you can scatter your divine casters around so they don't all get dispelled instantly. Potions are also great way to insta buff if your fighters are dispelled and are in a tight spot:potion of fire resistance, invulnerability, clarity, etc.

If the enemy has a spellshield, and spell turning, your pierce magic will dispel the spellshield, but turning will remain. If you send in a breach, it will be turned against you.

If the enemy has spell immunity:abjuration, pierce magic and like, and also breach won't work. You will need ruby ray, which is alteration. But it is a bit more complicated than that.

Say enemy also has spellshield, spellturning, spell deflection, and spell immunity:abjuration. You will need a ruby ray first to hit the spellshield, ruby ray is alteration and bypasses si:abjuration, any other spell removal will give you spell ineffective message and spellshield will remain intact) You think you need to fire another ruby ray to dispel the spell immunity:abjuration.

Problem is, ruby ray dispels the first spell protection that is highest level, and spell deflection (6th) and spell turning (7th) are higher than spell immunity (5th) so your second ruby ray will dispel spell turning. You still can not use abjuration spell removals, no khelbens whip, no pierce magic, no breach at this point as spell immunity is still going strong. A third rubyray will cancel the spell deflection. Finally a fourth ruby ray can remove the dreaded spell immunity:abjuration. NOW you can attack with breach, dispel magic and other spell removals like spell thrust, secret word, etc. (to get rid of minor globe of invulnerability or minor spell turnings) Oh, if the enemy had globe of invulnerability (6th lvl) you would have needed another ruby ray (a total of five!) because it would have targetted globe of invulnerability before spell immunity.

I remember back in my original bg2 days, loading up 3x ruby rays to nearest enemy sighted via chain contingency, when dealng with such troublesome spell casters. Ruby ray is beautiful.

Darkcloud

Thanks that really helped to clear up a lot that was not clear through the table of spell protections/dispel spells but Irenicus didn't seem to use all that complicated spell protection. Not sure if I will ever meet such enemies because I choose the option with no spell preperation (they still trigger their long term spells and spell triggers though).